“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:31-32).
Freedom.
Since it is Independence week, the theme of the Verses of the Day will deal with freedom.
Jesus defines for us what it means to be a disciple. And, you will see, the definition is redundant because disciple literally means to be a follower. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are following his teaching. See…redundant. But, I think Jesus tells us this because we somehow don’t seem to get it. Because we want to be his disciple yet we want to live lives according to what we think and believe is right. I know. Crazy!
Here is the first lesson from this weeks’ Verses of the Day – You cannot believe in lies and be free. Freedom is in knowing and believing the truth.
The biggest battle you face as a disciple is between what you know and what you feel. What you know to be true comes from God. God’s truth is our baseline for truth. But what we know to be true doesn’t have the same pull as what we feel. When it comes to effectiveness, our feelings have way more power than what we know.
Most of us are very good at living our lives based on what we know rather than what we feel.
- Imagine if you ate everything you felt like eating.
- Imagine if you said everything you felt like saying.
- Imagine if you did everything you felt like doing.
We’d all be in terrible shape! We’d have no friends! We’d all probably be in jail!
While we’re pretty good at living our lives based on what we know to be right, when it comes to faith issues, too many Christians give into how we feel about God, about money, about morality, about sex.
And that’s a terrible way to live. If you truly want to be free, the starting point is God’s truth. Stick with what you know. You already know how to live like that.
True freedom is found in obedience.
Praxis: Faith in Action 